Cris Carter Rips Adrian Peterson: 'Take Him Off the Field!'

Cris Carter Rips Adrian Peterson: 'Take Him Off the Field!'

Hall of Famer says running back was wrong for beating his son.

Published September 15, 2014

Cris Carter didn’t hesitate letting the country know his feelings on Adrian Petersonand the way he disciplined his 4-year-old son. The Hall of Fame receiver ripped into the Minnesota Vikings running backon ESPN’s “Sunday NFL Countdown” over for the punishment that Peterson dished out to his son with a thin tree branch or "switch."

“My mom did the best job she could do, raising seven kids by herself, but there are thousand of things that I have learned since then that my mom was wrong!” an emotional Carter said live on the air. “This is the 21st century. My mom was wrong! She did the best she could, but she was wrong about some of that stuff she taught me and I promised my kids that I won’t teach that mess to them. You can’t beat a kid to make ’em do what you want them to do.

“And now we’re to the point…the only thing I’m proud about is the team that I played for, they did the right thing,” he added. “Take him off the field! We’re in a climate right now, I don’t care what it is…take him off the dang-on field because you know what…as a man, that’s the only thing we really respect. We don’t respect no women, we don’t respect no kids…the only thing [NFL commissioner] Roger [Goodell] and them respect, take them off the field because they respect that.”

Peterson removed the leaves from a thin tree branch to administer a “whooping” to his son in May as a punishment for bad behavior.

"This indictment follows Adrian's full cooperation with authorities, who have been looking into this matter. Adrian is a loving father who used his judgment as a parent to discipline his son," Peterson’s attorney Rusty Hardin said in his statement, as reported by ESPN.

"He used the same kind of discipline with his child that he experienced as a child growing up in east Texas. Adrian has never hidden from what happened," Hardin said.